Here's a roundup of wealth management industry moves across North America during December 2019.

Cresset Capital, the US firm, appointed Jessica Malkin as executive vice president. Previously, she served as chief executive of Chicago Ideas, a platform and community for ideas and connections. Malkin supports strategic growth initiatives, such as improving clients’ experience of Cresset’s offerings, taking charge of learning events as well as expanding its national philanthropic, business, and civic engagement initiatives.

Canada-based Pascal Financial partnered with two prominent behavioral finance experts, helping advisors tap into the insights of this growing field and hence building business growth and retaining clients. The firm teamed up with Prasad Ramani and Alain Samson. Ramani serves as chief strategist - behavioral finance and Samson as chief scientific advisor - behavioral research.

With more than 20 years of experience in quantitative finance, Ramani is a recognized leader in behavioral finance strategy, applying research in behavioral science to use tech applications in financial services. He is a regular guest speaker at the London Business School. Samson is a prominent behavioral scientist with more than 13 years of experience working with companies on behavioral science theory, methodology and applications. He is the founder of the Behavioral Economics Group on LinkedIn with more than 41,000 members, editor of the Behavioral Economics Guide and a behavioral science columnist for Psychology Today. 

Argent Trust Company promoted Catherine McCulley from assistant trust administrator to vice president and trust officer in the firm’s Memphis office. A certified trust and financial advisor, McCulley joined Argent Trust Company in 2015. As vice president and trust officer, she took a larger client advisory role and drives business development efforts. Prior to joining Argent, she worked for three years as a private wealth management relationship associate for Regions Bank, and five years as financial services representative for SunTrust Bank.

Argent Trust Company promoted Cort Bethmann from vice-president and wealth advisor to senior vice president and wealth advisor in the firm’s Nashville office. Formerly with Franklin-based Independence Trust Company, which he joined in 2012, Bethmann joined Argent Trust Company in 2017 with the merger of Independence Trust Company with Argent.  A licensed attorney in Tennessee and Texas, Bethmann is involved in several area organizations, including the Estate Planning Counsel of Middle Tennessee, the Nashville Bar Association, the Nashville Bar Probate & Estate Planning Sections and the Williamson County Bar Association.

US-based Argent Trust Company appointed Kathy Christoffel as market president for Fort Worth, Texas, where she oversees the local wealth management team. A certified trust and financial advisor, Christoffel has 27 years of experience as a senior vice president and fiduciary officer at Wells Fargo. She received certification from Morton College in Cicero, Illinois. She also holds certificates from the Cannon Trust School in Administration I, II, III, Investments I and Sales & Presentation Skills.

Raymond James welcomed financial advisors Christopher “CJ” Stanford, CFP®, and Matthew Douglas, CFP®, to Raymond James & Associates (RJA) – the firm’s employee advisor broker/dealer – in Peachtree City, Georgia. Stanford and Douglas joined from Merrill Lynch, where they previously managed $270 million in client assets. They joined the Peachtree City office managed by Craig Norton and were accompanied by financial advisor trainee Tanner Low, who participated in Raymond James’ Advisor Mastery Program, and client service associates Alexis Lamb and Stephanie Moore. The team operates as DT & Associates of Raymond James.

Raymond James welcomed financial advisor Richard Austin, to Raymond James & Associates – in Montgomery, Alabama. Austin, first vice president of investments, joined RJA from UBS where he previously managed over $193 million in client assets. Joining Austin is client service associate Corrie Simpler. Working in the financial services arena for three decades, Austin began his career providing guidance on retirement plans and group health insurance at Principal. He has extensive experience of advising clients on wealth accumulation, retirement planning and general wealth transfers. 

Kainos Capital, a food and consumer-focused private equity firm, promoted Jeff Moredock to principal and elevated Julie Sanders to director. Moredock was one of the firm’s first vice presidents when he joined in 2017. Sanders has been a member of the team since 2017. Moredock leads the execution and management of investments and helps direct oversight of portfolio companies. Prior to joining Kainos, he was a VP at CenterOak Partners and an associate at Brazos Partners. He began his career as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank's M&A Group in New York. 

SagePoint Financial, an independent broker-dealer and registered investment advisor representing more than 1,400 independent financial advisors, hired John Ressler, a financial advisor based in Mason City, Iowa, with $115 million in total client assets. SagePoint is part of Advisor Group, a US network of independent wealth management firms, which also includes FSC Securities, Royal Alliance Associates and Woodbury Financial. Ressler has been a financial advisor for more than 30 years and offers clients across northern Iowa a range of fee-based advisory services, from retirement planning and education planning to investment management and insurance.

Accelmed Partners, a US-based private equity firm focused on investments in commercial stage healthtech companies, appointed Evan Norton as general partner. He is a long-standing figure at Abbott Laboratories. Norton spent a decade with Abbott leading its corporate venture arm, Abbott Ventures. During this time, Norton managed minority equity investments, structured transactions, and private company acquisitions on behalf of both Abbott's business units as well as developing entry strategies in white space markets. Previously, Norton was a principal on the medical device investment team at ONSET Ventures, a Sand Hill Road-based venture capital firm in California.

Adit Ventures appointed Michael Block, a market strategist and corporate advisor, as a special advisor to the New York-based venture capital firm. Block works with the investment and client teams to grow Adit's footprint in providing investment opportunities in market leading private companies to institutional and high net worth investors worldwide. He also chairs the firm's advisory board.

Raymond James appointed financial advisor Steven LeClair to join Raymond James & Associates - the firm’s employee advisor broker/dealer – in Upper Arlington, Ohio. LeClair joined RJA from UBS, where he previously managed more than $228 million in client assets. Joining LeClair are senior wealth management associate Lauren Matthiessen, and senior marketing associate Jodi McMillan. Together, they operate as LeClair Wealth Management of Raymond James. The advisor has 17 years in the industry, following a long career with UBS as branch manager and senior vice president. Outside the office, LeClair is actively involved in his community as a member of the Conway Family Business Center, the ESOP Association and the National Center for Employee Ownership, as well as serving formerly as a board member of the Association for Corporate Growth and the YMCA of Central Ohio.

d1g1t Inc, the Canada-based digital wealth platform, appointed Dr Andrew Aziz as executive vice president, business development and Kian Rafia as managing director, head of US distribution. Aziz has more than 20 years of financial services experience. He joined from IHS Markit where he served as senior vice president, global head of financial risk analytics, leading the financial risk analytics business line. From 2011 to 2016, Aziz led the strategy, research, business development and SaaS functions for IBM’s Risk Analytics division. Rafia has over 22 years of experience in various roles within the wealth management industry. He joined from Morningstar, where he served as executive vice president, head of advisor solutions. Rafia previously served as senior vice president of wealth management at Independent Financial Group and worked at Cetera Financial Group where he was responsible for the advisory platform growth of assets distributed through its financial advisors and managing investment technologies.

Law firm Kobre & Kim hired Ulrich Payne, an offshore and onshore litigator, as a partner in its Cayman Islands office. Prior to joining Kobre & Kim, Payne practiced at Ogier, where he advised on multi-million and multi-billion-dollar global disputes and worked on regulatory and internal investigations for international corporate clients. Before joining Ogier, Payne practiced at Kirkland & Ellis in London. He is admitted in the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and as a non-practicing lawyer in England and Wales.

Impact investment firm Vanderbilt Financial Group appointed Joseph Trifiletti as president. He has been chief operating officer for the past seven years. Trifiletti has been at Vanderbilt since 2006, starting as an intern and rising through the ranks. He has been involved in its rapid recruitment efforts since 2015, signing more than 100 new financial advisors and increasing its assets under management (AUM) by 150 per cent.

Evercore, the US-listed investment advisory house, named Chris Zander as its new chief executive, taking the helm from Jeff Maurer as CEO of Evercore Wealth Management LLC and a related firm, Evercore Trust Company NA. Maurer, who led Evercore Wealth Management since its inception in 2008, remained as chairman of Evercore Wealth Management and Evercore Trust Company. Maurer is based in the Palm Beach office of Evercore Wealth Management and Evercore Trust Company, and continues to work with the firms’ family, foundation and endowment clients. He started his career in 1970 at US Trust where he served as President, CEO and chairman. Zander joined Evercore Wealth Management in 2008 as a founding partner from US Trust, where he managed the national multi-family office. He was named president of Evercore Trust Company in 2017 and president of Evercore Wealth Management in 2019.

B Riley Wealth Management, subsidary of B Riley Financial, appointed Paul Dietrich as chief investment strategist. Dietrich joined from Fairfax Global Markets, where he previously served as chief executive and chief investment officer. Dietrich is focused on managing investments for private investors, retirement funds and private institutions throughout the US. He also serves as a frequent on-air commentator and regularly contributes market analysis to business and financial media including CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Reuters and The Washington Post.

Prior to his tenure with Fairfax, Dietrich served as CEO and CIO of Foxhall Capital Management. He previously worked as an international corporate attorney with Squire, Sanders & Dempsey (now Squire Patton Boggs) and Jones Day advising on privatization and economic development issues for the World Bank, as well as several governments in Asia and Eastern Europe. Prior to his legal career, Dietrich served as an elected State Representative from St. Louis County in the Missouri General Assembly for four years, from 1976 to 1980. He has also served as a member of the Advisory Board of the John Templeton Foundation.

Cetera Financial Group, the financial advisory firm, appointed Adam Antoniades as its chief executive. Antoniades worked for California-based Cetera for many years, most recently serving as its president since 2014. Antoniades was a founder of First Allied in 1994, now a Cetera broker-dealer, and served as its president and CEO for the better part of two decades. He was instrumental in helping the firm grow both organically and via acquisitions, including First Allied's sale to Wells Fargo in 2002. He serves the Financial Services Institute as chair of its board of directors. He was also on FSI's Political Action Committee and is a board member of Invest in Others. He kicked off his early career in financial services at Berkeley Administration, Inc, which is in Belgium, and at AJ Bekhor and Company, in the UK.

Conte Wealth Advisors, based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, opened an office at Market Street in York, bringing in two advisors into the organization. The joiners were Brian Lauer and Patrick Barry. The York office is the seventh CWA office with the rest spread across Florida and Pennsylvania. Lauer and Barry rounded out the CWA team of advisors to 17 in total with six of those advisors having joined in 2019.

Cleveland, Ohio-based Key Family Wealth, the multi-family office division of Key Private Bank, expanded its team with the addition of Doug Haack, Jennie Tyndall, and Brecken Diller to create a greater presence serving the most complex ultra-high net worth families in the West region. The team is based in Key Private Bank’s Seattle, Washington office and reports to Doug Banbury, managing director and head of Key Family Wealth Client Strategy and Investments.

Haack joined Key Family Wealth as a family wealth strategist. He serves as the primary point of contact for all new UHNW referrals (clients with liquid assets approaching $20 million and $50 million in overall net worth) in the West region. Haack has more than 20 years of experience serving UHNW individuals and families. Previously, he served as the chief client relationship officer at Cornerstone Advisors in Bellevue, Washington. Haack earned a master of business administration (MBA) degree at the City University of Seattle and a bachelor of science (BS) degree in marine engineering from the US Naval Academy.

Tyndall was appointed to the role of family wealth investment consultant. She is responsible for providing consultative and holistic investment expertise to UHNW clients and multigenerational families, integrating Key Private Bank’s investment philosophy and expanding the breadth of investment strategies available to clients. Previously, Tyndall served as director of portfolio management and communications for Threshold Group advising UHNW families in the development of investment strategies designed to achieve their investment goals and aspirations. She has more than 25 years of investment and portfolio management experience. Tyndall earned her BA in business administration from the University of Washington.

Diller, who has been named family office director, is a Certified Financial PlannerTM professional (CFP) and a member of the Washington State Bar Association with more than 15 years of experience in estate, tax and financial planning. Previously, he served as a private client manager at US Trust. Diller earned his master of laws (LLM) in taxation and juris doctor (JD) degrees from Seattle University School of Law. He also holds a bachelor of arts (BA) degree from the University of New Hampshire.